Around the Bend and Back
by chickenjaegers
Summary: I knew what this could've meant. I also wasn't stupid enough to believe that I had actually met this man before. But then again I have done some pretty stupid things. Somewhere deep down I have awaked a keening and begging voice within. I have to figure out who the hell this bastard Marco was. And winter break of my freshman year of college is the perfect time to do it.


I tended to snore, and quite a lot apparently. I would assume that my sleeping noises shouldn't cause too much strife around the dorm room I shared with one other person but then again not everyone sleeps like a rock such as I. But it's not like that the rough noises are entirely my fault. I mean nothing ever really is.

I would say that I am near flawless, the near being my snoring. My face is pretty much symmetrical and well shaped; despite Eren's constant prodding that it I have the face of a horse. Though unfortunately for him horses are some god damn majestically pretty creatures so that little nut bag can shove it. Having a horse face honestly isn't so bad- not that I am saying that I have one because I don't.

A supposedly soft pillow hit my face with the force strong enough to make it feel as though it was filled with rocks. I shot up from my position on the dorm bed and quickly and whipped my head towards my roomie. Eren Fucking Jaeger was sitting there looking almost as pissed as Sasha when Connie ate all of her hoarded ramen. He emitted an aura of strong displeasure and I'm pretty much one hundred percent sure that it's directed towards my snoring.

"Could you do me a favor and fucking pipe down Kirstchien, or so help my I will shove a cork down your throat to make you?" Eren practically spit this out at through clenched teeth. His jaw was pressed together so tight that I'm afraid that he'll either run his teeth deeper in his gums or make them shatter inside of his mouth.

I squinted my eyes at him and hoped they are filled with enough malice and hatred before I opened my mouth, sucked in a deep breath and made a guttural, deep, and obnoxiously loud snoring noise. Eren released a roar of anger before crossing my minimal space between our beds and smacking me in the face with his way to hard Temperpedic pillow.

I thought that the standard issued dorm pillow hurt like hell but this was something else entirely. Temper-fucking-pedic has officially created the most comforting and painful tool of destruction. They are a company of evil and comfy beds. What ever they are doing to these fucking pillows needs to stop because I have never felt suck terrible and unimaginable pain in my life.

To be honest it felt as though Eren picked up a fucking boulder and carried over here and smacked my right in the face with it. One could say that he turned into a giant humanoid and picked up a fucking boulder and just slammed against my perfect face.

"What the actual FUCK Jaeger?!" Eren never replied he just grunted and smirked while walking back to his bed. In a last ditch attempt at defiance I made another loud snoring noise I have never seen anybody move so fast in my life as I ran and laughed the whole way to the bathroom while the little brat was chasing me. I ducked into the bathroom and locked the door to ensure my safety. I could feel the door jolt into my back accompanied by a loud thumping of Eren running into the door.

I couldn't help but chuckle as I turned on the shower and stripped down. It's been awhile since I've won anything against Eren and for once I did, even though I can feel my neck tense up and my face forming a bruise I think today might actually be half decent.

After rolling my neck around to loosen it I stepped into the shower and hissed finding that I seriously underestimated it temperature. I grabbed the knob with ninja-like reflexes and twisted it to the right making it cool down and become a more suitable temperature.

The water was nice and warm as it spread across my achy and tired body. Under the hissing fountain of water I have deduced that it was far too early to have done all of that running. I felt exhausted and it wasn't even 6:30. I rolled my neck around trying to find the right angle in order to make it pop again. After feeling a small jolt in my neck I sighed in relief and hurried along.

Stepping out from the warmed and steamed bathroom and into the small living room attached was like a cold slap to the face. I keep forgetting that we were in the middle of fucking winter.

The tile floors were cold and unpleasant to be on, and I could swear that the dorm was so cold that the tips of my hair were starting to freeze.

Once I found myself in my room I hurried into a think shirt and hoodie while struggling to pull jeans on my wet legs. I ended up on my ass with my legs stretched out in front of me, the denim was started to soak and turn frigid and it appears that jeans were just not gonna work today.

I kicked off the stupid fucking pants and went to pull out a pair of pajama bottoms that had Lightning McQueen imprinted on to them. Before you jump to conclusions about my jammie choices just let me tell you that this is the softest and the warmest pair of pants that I own. I treasure them and their stupid car prints.

It was the first day of winter break and I can't believe that I am balls deep in The Last of Us at 7:46 am. My original intentions was to be balls deep in The Last of Us at around 1:00 pm, but hey, when life hands you Eren Jaeger that wakes you up, you take it and run because if he's waking you up it means that he is absolutely pissed.

My fingers works at the PS3 controller angrily trying to annihilate a horde of clickers with a single Molotov and what appears to be less than 3 bows left in my bow and arrow. Though the angry button mashing got me next to no where when one had grabbed me and ripped my neck out effectively killing me and leaving Ellie alone, well that is until I start back to my save point.

After about a gazillion more attempts I went ahead and just gave up for now tossing the controller on the bed and got up. I pulled some sneakers on and grabbed the keys sitting on my bedside table.

'I could really go for some coffee right now' I thought to myself.

They jingled ever so slightly when I twirled them around my finger as I walked out of the dorm giving a grunting noise and small wave to Eren, who was lazing about on the old couch. He grunted back and shoved a spoonful of generic brand Captain Crunch into his already full mouth.

I closed the dorm room behind me and smirked at the whiteboard placed on its wooden surface. It had a rough looking drawing from some student who obviously wasn't pleased with Eren's attitude as it depicted him with wide angry eyes and fire spewing from his mouth. While the picture next to it was a picture of me with a horse photo shopped onto my neck covering my face.

I turned away from our, if I do say so myself, infamous and excellently decorated whiteboard. I had my head down as I turned around so obviously I should've expected this but I ran head first into somebody's chest.

I bounced back and I could feel the person I ran into do the same. I fell back on my ass for he second time today and groaned rubbing the back of my head.

"Oh, God, I'm so sorry I didn't see you there." I laughed lightly trying to get this apology over with as quickly as possible to save me embarrassment and time being wasted.

"Well, I would assume so since you did have your head down." The stranger retorted sassily enough to make me whip my head up, scrunching my face into what I hoped was a nasty enough look to make them leave me alone.

But what I found when I looked up was not a face filled with disdain or rudeness, but a face that was soft and almost puppyish. His cheeks were littered with freckles, while some rebelled from norm and found their way onto his square jaw and perky nose.

I can feel my face warm up and my brain start to short circuit.

I can feel a strange sense of familiarity around him. I feel as though I have seen this face all of my life. These freckles seemed as though I have already memorized their location and the constellations that I can trace out. I wanted to reach out stroke the right side of his face. For some bizarre and weird reason I wanted to feel as though it was real. If it was really there, but I didn't, because I didn't want him to think I was a complete weirdo.

His stare started to drift from warm to slightly concerned as I continued to squint as his freckled face.

"Um, sir, are you alright-"his eyes widened and his hand flew to his face blushing and he continued with "is, is there something on my face"

I snapped out of it and shook my head and arms "no! No there isn't I just- I don't know, god I mean, fuck!" I couldn't understand why my words were becoming so jumbled and hard to execute.

He stood up and offered a hand as I continued to rant and babble on, but my words faded out until I fell silent and grabbed his waiting hand and using it to hoist myself up. His hand was firm and soft and was slightly bigger than mine. I mulled over this fact in my head as he started to chuckle and snicker to himself. I looked up and him and was bout to question why when I looked down and found that I was till holding his warm hand, and was playing with his fingers and palm in my own hand.

I screeched loudly and released it as though it was made of fire. He heard the man turn his tiny chuckles into a full out mix between screaming and laughing. He was bent over with his hand on his knees and near tears. Once the shock started to wear off I began to chuckle a little bit myself until I was joining him with loud gasps for air that were once laughter.

He was the first to sit up and wipe the gathering tears away from his eyes and I soon joined him.

He smiled brightly at me and the corners of his eyes crinkled smooshing a few of the freckles there together.

He was the first to break the silence that comfortable but was almost anxious. "By chance do you know where the on campus coffee shop is?" Jean thanked a god he barely believed in and spoke a little too eagerly with, "yeah man, I'm heading over there right now, and you can follow if you want to." His freckles crinkled further and his smiled widened stretching his thin lips across his cheeks.

"I would really like that!" I can honestly not handle how cute this fucking man is.

"Well then quit standing there like an idiot." This is bad very bad. My heart is lurching pleasantly in my chest and I am not very happy that it is. I don't even know his fucking name.

'Well actually that's a very easy problem to fix you shithead.' I snorted at my own thought and pivoted my head to look over my shoulder and asked "so, dude, what's your name?" he looked at me with his deep brown eyes, and I swear if I ever had the opportunity to get lost in them I bet it would be like swimming in a fucking chocolate lake.

"It's Marco, Marco Bodt." My ears rang with that eerie sense of familiarity. I knew that name, but I couldn't place it. And I don't know why but I almost felt a little pain in my chest.

I was interrupted when he stopped alongside me and tilted his head I little to the right. "What about you? I'm sure there is something better to call you other than Horseface." He smiled warmly despite the fresh dish of burning hot diss he just sent my way.

Oh god did I wanted to yell at him and hit him like I would do with Jaeger, but he was definitely no Jaeger. I scoffed and lightly punched him in his arm.

"Wow never expected Mr. Freckled Jesus to serve up a burn quite like that, it's Jean Kirstchien."

He winks at me and shoved his hands in his pockets, "Oh, I'm no angel, Jean, trust me." I practically sputtered and coughed at Marco's bold words and felt my face heat up near instantly. I stomped off quickly and shouted for him to follow me or I'll leave him there.

The walk to the coffee shop was mostly quiet as Marco and I bumped shoulders and hands every once in a while. While I, as I hate to admit it, felt flustered and warm every time contact was made. God I'm such a girl.

Once we had arrived I opened the door for him and waved my arm towards the door and bowed, "M'lady." He put his hands to his mouth and gave an exaggerated gasp as he sashayed through the door; he turned around intertwined his fingers and rested them on the side of his face. He spoke in an over done English accent, "Oh thank you Prince Jean of Dorm 32 Kingdom."

I smirked and curtseyed. I broke character as well as he, and we started to laugh together.

I felt so comfortable around him. I could be myself and I could make shitty jokes and take all of the horseface jokes. It felt so natural to be by his side. His warmth and happy aura was welcomed and I almost yearned for it, and I've only known him for an hour.

'Get yourself together Jean; don't make him think you are some creep.'

We both ordered and sat down at the back of the shop in a little booth waiting for our name to be called. The seats were soft and easy to melt into, though the leather was significantly colder than the warm little shop. It was easy for my Lightning McQueen PJs to warm up the seat for me though. I fucking love these jammies god-damn.

"Nice PJs Jean." Marco voice was dripping with sarcasm that could easily have been masked by the little smile that adorned his face.

"Hey there man, don't you dare diss the McQueen, if you do that I will have to take them off and fucking strangle you with the fuzzy and warm legs parts." I was fucking serious about these jammies, nobody fucks with me and the McQueen.

He cheeks puffed out and a smile was placed in between but was hidden when a hand held back a loud laugh. His face was starting to turn red and his eyes were tearing up, his dark eyebrows were pushing up into his forehead creating more creases to squish the freckles together. I can hear the poor man let out a loud breath signaling that his near laugh attack was over.

"Mr. Lightning Mcqueen!" I shot a look at Marco that basically translated to, 'I swear to god you turd.'

I got up with the entire shop watching me and my stupid (I mean wonderful) cartoon car fuzzy pants. Once my walk of shame was over, and I reached the counter with the barista handing me the a caramel frappe and a black coffee were handed over she pointed at Marco and whispered in my ear, "make sure to tell Mater I said hey."

I glared at her and turned around and walked back to our little corner. I slammed down Marco's sissy-ass drink and sulked into my side of the booth we were in and gave him the dirtiest look I could possibly muster.

"Fuck you Marco Bodt."

"Hush up Mr. McQueen and drink your damn coffee."

And I did just that. I drank that entire cup off steaming hot bitter dark coffee with a fiery look of defiance, which after feeling my tongue and throat becoming raw came to the stunning the conclusion that coffee fucking burns like the touch of Satan himself.

Marco happily sipped his drink in front of me as I waited for my mouth to cool down enough to speak to him properly.

"Want to head back?" I could tell by the slurping noises coming from him that he has finished his pussy-ass drink.

"Yup, ready to blow this Popsicle stand, Mater?"

"As ready as I'll ever be, McQueen."

(line break here)

We stood outside of my dorm and fidgeted for a little bit, neither one of us wanting to say goodbye just yet. I fiddle with my fingers and the soft fur of my awesome fucking jammie pants.

I decided to be the first to open my mouth and say something. "I swear I know you, I don't know how but you seem so familiar and I never get along with someone so quickly."

I can see his fidgeting turn from something to busy himself with to be being more and more nervous the more I talked. "W-what do you mean Jean, we just met today."

I shook my head and faced him and leaned in closely our faces were had little space between each other as I scanned his freckles that were placed on his slightly reddening cheeks.

"I know these freckles, I swear I do. I know what shapes they make. I know how they are haphazardly thrown on your face." I paused and flicked my eyes up at his widened brown orbs. Where they once held a warmth and happiness they were now filled with a nervous and almost pain filled tint.

"Idon'twhatyouaretalkingaboutok." His reply was rushed and barely comprehensible.

I shrugged and held out my fist to him. I was left hanging for an embarrassing amount of time because he seemed to be in a completely different world. I decided I waited long enough and picked up his fist which was resting on his side. He seemed to flinch and his face reddened further as I pressed my fingers to his making them curl into a fist and maneuvered it to meet mine.

"See ya around Freckles." He snapped out of it and smiled at me saying, "Definitely Horseface."


End file.
